


a place in the dark

by trespresh



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Explicit Language, Gen, Graphic Violence, Matt momentarily losing his shit, Testosterone, mentioned death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-07-14 04:44:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7154072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trespresh/pseuds/trespresh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Are you going to tell me it gets easier?” Daredevil asks, his voice gruff like that’s the very last thing he wants to hear.</p><p>Frank can’t help but laugh, and it’s a little hysterical, a little sarcastic because <i>really</i>? “Do I seem like the kind of guy to feed you bullshit like that? Nah, ain’t ever gonna’ get easier.”</p><p>(Frank helps Matt grieve, the only way he knows how.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	a place in the dark

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what this is. Frank fucks me up.
> 
> Title belongs to My Chemical Romance, characters belong to the Marvel Universe.

Frank’s good at minding his own business when he wants to, good at finding a place to lay low and not be found.

Or, well. He thought he was.

He feels the presence about ten feet behind him long before he hears the guy. Daredevil (which—fuckin’ ridiculous name, but what leg does Frank have to stand on now that he’s started embracing _The Punisher_?) waits patiently for the few minutes before Frank looks away from the city view this rooftop offers. He doesn’t like this guy, hates the way he shows up where he’s not wanted—and silent as a bat, too, at that. It creeps the fuck out of Frank, how light the guy is on his feet, but there’s something to say for the way Frank doesn’t even flinch anymore.

 “Whadday’ want, Red?”

A week has passed since Frank picked off those ninja assholes coming after the Devil from two rooftops away. Settling their score, his and Red’s, Frank figures, some shit like that. He doesn’t know why he’d bothered, but something good did come of that choice. It’s almost laughable now that he knows exactly who’s under that stupid hood. His lawyer, the blind one. Christ. Frank thinks the guy is scarier when he’s hobbling around, pretending to be a normal person—because Frank sees through that fake bullshit now, knows exactly what kind of fire is churning behind those dark sunglasses.

He looks across the dark rooftop at the shadowed figure, the absurd horns silhouetted against a jet of steam that rises behind the guy. A corner of Frank’s lip twitches up and he chuckles. Daredevil straightens.

“We need to talk.”

“You here to break up with me, Red?” The guy growls in this frustrated little scoff and Frank laughs again, “I wouldn’t fuck with you if you didn’t make it so easy, y’know.”

“Want to tell me why Colonel Schoonover was found with half his skull shot off?”

Frank stares hard at him, all traces of his grin gone. “Took Hell’s Kitchen’s finest long enough to find him.”

The Devil’s head tilts to the side. “I’ve been doing some digging.”

Frank’s on his feet before the guy finishes his sentence. “Don’t. Mind your goddamn business. I mean it.”

“Why’d you do it?”

Frank sneers and goes for the explanation he knows will get Murdock to back off. “He had Karen Page at gunpoint, and he and I had unfinished business. She’s breathing, he’s not.” He lets out a humorless chuckle. “Two birds, one bullet.”

Daredevil takes a half step back and Frank relaxes by a fraction. He watches the guy’s mouth twitch like he wants to say something. He hears the unspoken _thank you_ and leaves it at that.

Neither of them speaks for a minute or two. Yeah, it’s been a week, and now that Frank really looks at the Devil, he can tell. The guy’s still burning; it’s in the way he stands, tense and alert, shoulders squared yet somehow low like they’re just too heavy, his jaw so strained he looks like he might break his own teeth.

Frank can recognize it because he knows what it feels like to hold your woman in your arms, her body shaking and cold. He remembers too well how it leaves you hollow to tell her everything’ll be okay even as you feel her last breath on your face.

So he feels for the guy, as much as he can through the annoyance the Devil still inspires in him.

“Listen, Red—”

Daredevil cuts him off and Frank wonders how the guy knew his train of thought. Another freaky devil-thing, he figures.

“Are you going to tell me it gets easier?” Daredevil asks, his voice gruff and suddenly so _tired_ like that’s the very last thing he wants to hear.

Frank can’t help but laugh, and it’s a little hysterical, a little sarcastic because _really_? He gestures vaguely around the rooftop. “Do I really seem like the kind of guy to feed you bullshit like that? Nah, ain’t ever gonna’ get easier.”

The guy in front of him folds in on himself just a little, so minutely that Frank would’ve missed it if he didn’t recognize the movement—the stunted little jerk of the hand toward his stomach, the hitched breath, the way his mouth pulls down like he doesn’t remember how it feels to not be on fire inside. Frank sees it, knows it, the miserable movements of a miserable man realizing he’s lost everything.

“Y’know what helps though?” Frank continues, and Daredevil’s head tilts. “Revenge.”

The guy snorts. “I got my revenge.”

“And it still hurts, huh?”

Daredevil says nothing. Frank leans back against the edge of the rooftop; he’s got his arms crossed over his chest, grinning when he says, “Then we finally understand each other.”

The Devil takes a step forward, an ugly grimace twisting his mouth. “I’m nothing like you.”

“Like hell you’re not. How often do you think of her when you’re trying to fall asleep?” He scoffs. “You’re one more sleepless night away from picking up a pistol of your own.”

“I’d never—” The guy growls, bracing forward, teeth bared like a fucking animal and proving Frank’s point.

Frank doesn’t know why he pushes the guy, why he says it. Maybe it’s selfish, a deep-seated need to prove he’s not the only burning man in this city. Maybe it’s fun. Or maybe it’s an offering—some sort of fucked up therapy he wishes someone had offered him all those months ago.

He tenses, unfolding his arms and staring the guy down. His voice rises in a condescending bark, and yeah, he thinks, he’s gonna push this. “Yeah, Red, you’re so much better than me? You held her while she bled out, and you’d never kill the fucker that took her away from you? No, wait, that’s _exactly what you fucking did—_ ”

That does the trick. He feels for the guy, would never wish this kind of unearthly pain on another person, so when he surges at Frank with a furious shout and the blows land—it’s because Frank lets him, because he knows what it’s like to be so consumed with misery and grief and _anger_ that you need to destroy something, anything, break it to pieces just to let some of the poison in your heart and veins out.

He falls to the ground and Daredevil chases him down, shouting in shapeless thoughts, grunting with the effort of each thud of his knuckles on Frank’s face, and Frank just lets him, turns his face into the guy’s fists because what’s a new bruise or three on his already-battered face? He wonders what Matt Murdock sees right now. He’s willing to bet it’s nothing but a whole lot of fire.

The blows land hard, bone against bone, not that Frank can feel much of his face anymore, not after the sickening, spongey _crack_ that means his nose has broken; not after the echoing little crunch of his cheekbone fracturing and the taste of blood pooling in the back of his throat. Not now, when his lip splits under the Devil’s furious fists and hot, hot blood cascades down his face, sideways into his ears until he can’t hear anything over the deafening ringing in his head.

He lets Daredevil beat him to a pulp, lets Matt Murdock pour every ounce of hate and fury and regret and despair into each punch, and hopes it’s enough.

He’s so blindingly disoriented that it takes him a minute before he realizes the barrage has stopped, that there’s no weight on top of him anymore. Daredevil has stumbled back, away from Frank’s throbbing face, and Frank’s mind clears just enough that he can hear the heavy breaths, the horrified mumbles Murdock spews from a foot or two away.

He blinks his eyes open as much as he can against the rapid swelling. He pulls himself up into a sitting position with a pained groan. His head doesn’t hurt like he’s expecting it to, which is probably a bad sign right there, but Frank doesn’t care. He straightens his shoulders, tilts his head back and forth on his neck, taking stock of his body. All in all, he figures, he’s taken worse beatings before.

“Frank,” Murdock starts, “Frank, Jesus, I’m so—”

“Can it, Red,” Frank coughs wetly. He skims his fingers lightly over his nose, feels how it’s bent at a crooked angle, and without thinking too much about it, he jerks it back into position with a squishy _pop._ Not the first time he’s had to set it himself. He wipes the blood from his mouth with the back of his dirty hand and looks over at the horrified expression on Murdock’s face. Somewhere in the past two minutes, he’d lost the hood; it sits harmlessly a few feet away. “Feel any better?”

Murdock doesn’t say anything, his mouth open as he heaves in huge, gulping breaths. The rooftop is quiet for a few minutes as they listen to the distant honks of car horns, of people on the street below talking and laughing—a city living and breathing, carefree as Hell’s Kitchen can be, while its two protectors gasp on a rooftop, dealing with their pain the only way they know how.

Frank’s head starts to throb. “Sorry your girl died, Red,” he says quietly, so sincerely that it somehow feels like sin to even break the silence with the words.

He looks away and pretends he doesn’t notice when Murdock wipes impatiently at a tear that breaks loose down his cheek.

“I don’t know whether to apologize or thank you,” Murdock says, and he sounds defeated, his voice low. “You were right.”

He gets to his feet and reaches for the hood on the ground. Frank looks up at him, waiting for clarification.

“We _do_ have an understanding, you and I.”

Frank wants to smile but his cheekbones hurt. “Wasn’t me you needed revenge on but it helped, huh?”

Murdock pulls the hood over his face, adjusts it until it sits right. “I’ve got a friend. Claire Temple. She’s good with blood… tell her I sent you.”

His mouth works like there’s something else he wants to say. _Sorry_ , probably. Frank really wishes he won’t.

He doesn’t. “One more thing,” he says, turning toward the other end of the roof. “Stay away from Karen Page.”

The words come as such a shock to Frank that he can’t stop the laugh he lets out. “Shit, man. Have you _met_ her? The lady doesn’t need protection.” He spits a wet wad of blood onto the cement and looks up at the guy. “Not from me, anyway.”

The words hang heavy in the air between them, Daredevil still as stone before he sighs and takes off toward the opposite end of the roof at a run. And then, wouldn’t you know it, he dives off the edge.

Crazy fucker.

Frank waits until his face is good and swollen, probably the size of damned watermelon by now, before getting wearily to his feet and making his way to his dingy apartment.

 


End file.
